National Geographic, April, 1961
I made a trip out with the old boys.
"Our ship was built in '04," owner William
James Campbell told me.
"She was a sailing
ship first, what we call a wherry. But we put
an engine into her in 1910. Have to keep up
with the times, you know. Can't call a ship
the Radium and not be modern."
Campbell had been with her for 52 of
her 55 years, and had owned her since 1914.
But he didn't skipper her. He left that to
young John Smith, aged 67, who had been in
the ship only 30 years.
Old-timers Fish Without Gadgets
We sailed early one evening, going out
quietly to sea as the day fishermen were com
ing in. We went well out in the Minch. I was
invited into the wheelhouse and squeezed
myself in, with some difficulty. It had a large
wheel, an outsize and rather elderly compass
swinging above the helmsman's head, and the
smallest possible hatchway that led down to
the dark depths where the ancient engine was
noisily at work. Abaft that, in the pointed
stern, was a bit of a cabin with some shelves
for bunks, a small cooking stove, a table and
two benches, and little else.
On deck a large lifeboat was stowed aft. It
had a look of some permanency, as if it was
not moved very often. There was one small
mast carrying a bit of a gaff-and-boom mizzen,
to which the ship would lie through the night
while the nets were out.
I looked in vain for modern instruments.
"Got none," said Campbell.
"Don't hold
with all these gadgets."
Skipper Smith explained that they went out
on bearings. When certain hills and headlands
bore in certain directions, and the weather
was right and the state of the moon and tide,
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